The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2376, 1 October 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

SATURDAY , OCTOBER 1, 1887.

Kqtuil and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever slate or persuasion, religious or political.

♦ The Auckland Freezing Company are now calling for tenders for the erection of creameries in Waikato. The settlers will, we trust, be found heartily supporting a movement which will give so large an impetus to dairying operations in Waikato. The price to he paid for the milk is less than they were accustomed to receive from the cheese factories, hut they must bear one fact in mind. In the case of the cheese factories, to be accepted as milk suppliers, they were compelled to ■ take shares in the company as a 1 commercial speculation, and, with not more than one exception in Waikato, the suppliers lost as much, if not more, on the shares than they gained on the extra price of the milk given. As we have said, it is to he hoped that the farmers will not neglect their part of tile matter, and, to do this, they will need at the present season to lay themselves out for the means of feeding their dairy stock with succulent milk-yielding food during the next winter, and with a supply of green stuff for that portion of the summer when, save in exceptional seasons, the grass is almost as scarce as in winter itself. And here we must protest against the resort so common to the growth of the turnip for dairy purposes. That crop is easily raised under any circumstances and almost anywhere, but the feeding properties arc low, and first-class butter cannot he made when turnips are fed to milch cows. Some of our more enterprising settlers have tried silos for the preservation of green food for winter use, and successfully, but in winter tares and in the carrot crop, and more especially than all in sugar-beets, the dairyman xvill find his chief stay. No better flavoured butter or richer milk can he produced from any food than from carrots and sugarbeets, the latter being grown at wider distances and of larger size than for sugar manufacturing purposes. When so grown, and containing a less though still large percentage of sugar, the root will come up clean and smooth as a wellgrown carrot, for it is the beetroots excessively rich in sugar that from congestion of the sap run so much to fingers and toes. As we have said the farmers must perform their share in the undertaking, and keep the creameries xvell supplied with milk throughout the year. The undertaking, they must remember, is on the part of the Freezing Company only a tentative one, and it is not to be expected that it will be carried out a second season, or on the same or better terms for the farmer, unless the latter by a continuous and steady supply of milk, in winter as well as in summer, enables the company to maintain such a trade in dairy produce as will alone warrant the undertaking. With the means at their command, and a steady supply of milk the Freezing Company cannot but succeed in making the name of Waikato butter famous in every outside market. There is another way, too, in which they may largely benefit themselves and the settlers, to which we earnestly draw their attention at the present time, and before the creamery buildings are erected. Fruit growing of all kinds has been largely gone into by Waikato farmers, and indeed by all persons in the district. As a consequence, and especially in the case of non keeping varieties of apples, there is at one season of tho year a glut of fruit which cannot find even low prices in the local market. While later on twopence and threepence per lb., are readily got for sound apples, there is a portion of tho season when to send them to Auckland is positive loss, and good sound fruit has been auctioned in the local market at one half-penny and one farthing per lb. The same rule, in a lesser degree perhaps, applies to plums and small fruit. Now, it would pay the Freezing Company to give a fair price for fruit of all kinds at this season, which could he received daily at the creameries. There it could be pulped, if required for jam, and stored away in properly-secured packages (as is done in Tasmania for transmission to jam factories in New Zealand), till a sufficiency has accumulated to forward in hulk to the company’s cool chambers in Auckland where it could he kept till convenient for treating either as jam or as tinned fruit. The company lias its own tinning plant and might very profitably to itself make this other industry of fruit-preserving chime in with its butter-making in Waikato and its meat tinning at head quarters. The farmer could send his fruit, as it ripened, daily with his milk to the factory where it would be received and stored, and thus the over-stocked market would be relieved and the general price of fruit for ordinary purposes made firmer. Li this way the proposed creameries may he made to serve a double purpose in Waikato to tho benefit of all parties. That they may prove a success is eminently desirable, for dairying must ever form an important feature in Waikato farming, es-

peciatly as holdings, as we hope to see, shall become smaller or of more moderate size. There is no better mainstay for the small settler commencing work upon a farm than the production of milk, saleable at a factory where a quick return, and that, too, in cash, is secured. Cows are obtainable at low prices, and where procured on terms, have been often paid for by the milk they produced before the time for paying for them arrived. Tho price obtained for the milk may seem small, hut it must he bonus in mind that it represents 7d per lb for the butter, and that in cash. Now, how many fanners can say that they have secured this much for their home-made butter sold to the trade 1 And how many of them arc capable now of holding their own in the market against the very superior article made by the factories ? They are saved also the household drudgery of tho dairy, and have the skim milk in either case the same. They may then, wethink, accept the inevitable, not merely with a good grace, but with lively satisfaction, and do their best to assist in securing for the new industry a permanent footing in the district, and more especially so as it may he made the means, as we have pointed out in reference to fruit production, of finding a profitable market for that which now goes to waste in large profusion. Nay, more, we trust that the day is not distant when the introduction of the Freezing Company’s operations into the Waikato may result in a far “ bigger thing,” tho erection of the necessary works for the establishment of a dead meat market for the sale of beef and mutton grown in the district.